Community

Black Lives Matter

For six weeks during the summer of 2015, 40 LGBTQ youth and youth allies, ages 14-18, interned at The Attic, working together to learn and share about the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the history of systemic oppression in America. This project is a reflection of their work and experiences as young LGBTQ people of color, and discussions regarding how they can educate others and make change happen.

World Building II: The Afrofuture

Participants will be using the anthology, Octavia’s Brood, current news stories, and science fiction media to examine alternate ideas about society that run counter to the current systems and narratives under which we currently live.

#BlackLivesMatter
The mission statement of the #blacklivesmatter movement lifts up the many lenses of black experience, and demands justice for the countless black lives that have been lost to police violence and a broken judicial system. Together, the youth in this group will determine what this mission statement means to them, and what they want to do to take action.

DramAttic
Theater of the Oppressed is a method of improvisational theater that uses games and activities to explore systems of power, personal stories and ways to make change. In this group, youth will devise first-person theater that lift up the experiences of LGBTQ youth of color in Philadelphia. The group will experiment with pop up public performances and youth-led ways to speak out against injustice.

Story Storming
A radio storytelling/mini-podcast series created by participants. Youth will explore their own experience with systemic oppression, listen and learn from their peers, and use their voices to resist the world as it is and envision/create a new one. (Content from group was added to The Attic’s Radio Program, Making A Change Radio)

You can find all 10 episodes here. Read the descriptions. Click on the title of the piece you'd like to listen to. Engage your minds and hearts. And don't forget to share what you like on social media!

Naiia presented the radio series at PhillyCam's National Radio Day Event. In addition to representing The Attic, she introduced the episode Convo on the Po-Po. PhillyCam definitely wants to air radio work from The Attic once their LPFM radio station is up and running later this Fall.

MPowerment
In this group we talk about the Health Care System and the history of and current day oppression of Black people and Black bodies within the system. We will compare the United States’ Health Care System in which insurance and pharmaceutical companies seek to make a profit off of denying or impeding people's care with countries with socialized medicine. We will explore HIV as a Black Lives Matters issue as well as HIV activism. We'll have HIV and STD 101 and move towards a campaign created by youth in which a piece of systemic oppression is outlined, addressed, and responded to through a medium chosen by and for youth. Guest facilitators will be a part of our exploration into this topic.

PΘΣTentialPΘΣTential is a poetic “call to action” group focusing on the portrayal of black/brown lives in the media. Youth in this group will be creating poems that will move from the page to the stage in order to embody the change they wish to be in the world.